Waiting to See Simone Weil’s Grave

Stump’s Travel Log

After the best night of sleep I’ve had yet on this trip (and that without any pharmaceuticals!), I left my pod hotel in Gatwick Airport and took a train to London Bridge, then the Underground to Kings Cross St. Pancras, then another train down to the city of Ashford. From there I walked a mile and a half to Bybrook Cemetery, where Simone Weil is buried.

She was a French philosopher and mystic who died in Ashford during WWII helping the French resistance which was headquartered there. Her death might be considered a casualty of the war, but not for the usual reasons that happens. She basically starved herself because she refused to eat more (or even as much) as the French soldiers were being rationed. She did this sort of thing all throughout her short life, as an attempt to identify with people in unfortunate circumstances (she herself was born into a privileged family in Paris). But during the war when she contracted tuberculosis, she wasn’t strong enough to fight it off. The coroner even went so far as to call it a suicide.

I went to see her grave because I think I’m going to use her as a kind of guide in the book I’m writing. There are several episodes in her life that illustrate some points I’m going to make, and her commentary on human life is full of insights. Her most well-known book these days is Waiting for God. The title itself is really interesting. Do we search for God? Or do we wait to let God find us?

I’ve never been much drawn to theologies that eviscerate our free will. But it also seems a bit presumptuous to think we dictate the terms of our spiritual lives to the Creator and Lord of the universe! Simone Weil was born into a Jewish household, but never practiced that religion. Instead, she became friends with a Catholic priest and understood her spirituality in largely Catholic terms (though famously never accepted baptism into the Catholic Church). She writes sometimes as though God determines things, but her thinking is much more subtle than that. Here’s a really rich passage from one of her journals:

There is a reality outside the world, that is to say outside space and time, outside our mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties. Corresponding to this reality, at the center of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world… Although it is beyond the reach of any human faculties, humans have the power of turning their attention and love towards it. Nothing can ever justify the assumption that any people, whoever they may be, have been deprived of this power. It is a power which is only real in this world insofar as it is exercised. The sole condition for exercising it is consent.”

So I consent to exercise the power of turning my attention toward that reality insofar as I am able. May I have the eyes to see whatever of that reality is accessible to my finite human faculties — or at least not to pretend that the longing of my heart can be appeased by any object in this world.

I waited for about 15 minutes at Simone’s grave, hoping for something miraculous or even mystical. The grave is very plain, much like she was in life. But over the last year as I’ve been waiting to make a pilgrimage to it, I’ve wondered if something out of the ordinary might happen. No such luck.

Or perhaps it’s for the best. I’ve already written the chapter for the book introducing the reader to Simone Weil, and only left space for a couple of sentences about visiting her grave. If something magical had happened, I would have had to rewrite that chapter — or perhaps the whole book!

After those fifteen minutes, I walked the mile and a half back to the train station. Took one to London Bridge, and then another to Gatwick. My easyJet is delayed, so the theme of this post — waiting — continues. I’m guessing I’ll not be up for writing anything else about this day tonight. So if anything else noteworthy happens today, you’ll have to wait to hear about it.

Tomorrow I expect to write again… from Gibraltar.